SUPPLEMENT COVER STORY POWER ELECTRONICS
ULTRATHIN & HIGH POWER REGULATORS ideal for communications systems
Tony Armstrong, director of product marketing of power products at Linear Technology Corporation investigates the latest ultrathin & high power µModule regulators and their performance capabilities
circuits or ICs on these boards are required to operate at voltages ranging from sub-1V to 3.3V at currents ranging from tens of milliamps to hundreds of amps. As a result, point-of-load (POL) DC/DC converters are necessary to step down from the intermediate bus voltage to the desired voltage required by the sub-circuits or ICs. These rails have strict requirements for sequencing, voltage accuracy, margining and supervision. There can be as many as 50
POL voltage rails in a telecom system and system architects need a simple way to manage
T
elecom equipment manufacturers are continually being pushed to increase
the data throughput and performance of their systems as well as add functionality and features. At the same time, pressure is being applied to decrease the systems overall power consumption. For example, a typical challenge is to reduce overall power consumption by rescheduling the work flow and moving jobs to underutilised servers, thereby enabling shutdown of other servers. To meet these demands, it is essential
to know the power consumption of the end-user equipment. Thus, a properly designed digital power management system (DPSM) can provide the user with power consumption data, allowing for smart energy management decisions to be made. Perhaps most significantly, DC/DC
converters with digital management functionality allow designers to develop “green” power systems that meet target performance (compute speed, data rate, etc.) with minimum energy usage at the point of load, board, rack and even installation levels, reducing infrastructure costs and the total cost of ownership over the life of the product. Many telecom systems are powered via
a 48V backplane. This voltage is normally stepped down to a lower intermediate bus voltage of typically 12V to 3.3V to power the racks of boards within the system. However, most of the sub-
S8 NOVEMBER 2016 | ELECTRONICS Figure1:
LTM4622 can be mounted on the underside of a PCB
these rails with regards to their output voltage, sequencing and maximum allowable current. Certain processors demand that their I/O voltage rise before their core voltage, alternatively certain DSPs require their core voltage rise before their I/O. Power down sequencing is also necessary. Designers need an easy way to make changes to optimise system performance and to store a specific configuration for each DC/DC converter in order to simplify the design effort. Moreover, the systems architects still
need to have relatively simple power converters to satisfy the various other power rails on their boards but have an ever shrinking board area on which to place them. This is due, in part, to not being able to fit these converters on the underside of their circuit boards due to a 2mm maximum component high restriction forced on them due to the multiple boards placed side-by-side in a rack mounted configuration. What they would really like to have is a complete power supply in a small form factor, which does not exceed 2mm when mounted onto a printed circuit board (PCB).
SOLUTIONS FIT FOR PURPOSE Linear Technology’s µModule (micromodule) products are complete System in a Package (SiP) solutions that minimise design time and solve the common problem of board space and density issues commonly found in
communications systems. These µModule products are complete power management solutions with integrated DC/DC controller, power transistors, input and output capacitors, compensation components and inductor within a compact, surface mount BGA or LGA packages. Designing with this range of products
can significantly reduce the amount of time needed to complete the design process by up to 50% depending on the complexity of the design. The µModule family transfers the design burden of component selection, optimisation and layout from designer to device, shortening overall design time, system troubleshooting and ultimately improving time to market. Linear’s µModule solutions integrate
key components commonly used in discrete power, signal chain and isolated designs within a compact, IC-like form factor. Supported by the company’s rigorous testing and high reliability processes, this product portfolio simplifies the design and layout of power conversion designs. The µModule family of products
embraces a wide range of applications including point-of-load regulators, battery chargers, LED drivers, power system management (PMBus digitally-managed power supplies), isolated converters, battery chargers and LED driver. As highly integrated solutions with PCB Gerber files available for every device, these power products address time and space constraints while delivering a high efficiency, reliable and with select products a low EMI solution compliant with EN55022 class B standards. As design resources become stretched
by increased system complexity and shortened design cycles the focus falls on development of the key intellectual property of the system. This often means the power supply gets put to one side until late in the development cycle. With little time and perhaps limited specialist power design resource, there is pressure to come up with a high efficiency solution with the smallest possible footprint; while potentially utilising the underside of the PCB as well for maximum space utilisation.
/ ELECTRONICS
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